


Not Exactly the Snow Queen

by kres



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-30
Updated: 2005-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kres/pseuds/kres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their mind is a simple play.</p><p>[originally posted at kres.livejournal.com]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Exactly the Snow Queen

**Author's Note:**

> It's Pegasus B, J/D, PG-13, and many thanks go to [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=ev_vy)**[Le Sigh](http://www.livejournal.com/users/ev_vy/)** , HJ, [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=tempe)**[Tripoli](http://www.livejournal.com/users/tempe/)** and [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=troyswann)**[salieri](http://www.livejournal.com/users/troyswann/)**.
> 
> Also, bows to [](http://tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com/)**tafkarfanfic** for pointing me in the right direction.
> 
> Happens after [**this**](http://www.livejournal.com/community/pegasus_b/3758.html#cutid1) and **this** by Salieri. Read them both if you want to know the keywords. Otherwise mine might be too weird.
> 
> Well, it might be too weird anyway.
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> Comments highly appreciated.

Their mind is a simple play.

Sight-through mapping their mind is the lowest-layer task after barely half a cycle of the dream.

Boring.

Centuries upon centuries of seeing-through, their language like any other, spread thin before her, and she twists it and plays with it to exercise her thought.

Dreaming in their language; she hasn’t tried that yet.

Perhaps one day, she will.

This day, she is cornered in the here-now. She is cornered, and she would be entertained by the effort of their pattern-play for once sliding out of pattern, but she is not, because it’s boring still, and she is cornered in the here-now, imprisoned by the flat and dark here-now, shackled by the invisible buzzing of the horizontals, cornered by the predictable pattern-play of their mind.

_I want to know why._

In her flesh, she is in the middle, because the middle is order, the middle is along their pattern-view of the here-now, and it is along their pattern-view that she would be in the middle, away-from, afraid-of the buzzing, so she is.

She is amused this way.

But in her thought, she is not in the middle. She is close to the buzzing, she is through the buzzing, she is outside looking into the eyes of the beast, following the bent shape of the beast.

Feet, knees, chin, a tight intertwining of fingers.

The beast is waiting. Its mind is filled with patterns.

_I want to know why you treat us like animals, while you behave like animals yourselves._

Their mind is a simple play. Empty places when they seek sound-answers, but once she sees-through, the places are not really empty – they are filled, and there is no space left for the sound-answers, whatever they might be. Centuries upon centuries of pattern-play pre-filling itself, and it’s boring, so she skims over it and lets the lowest layer work, while she touches inside--

_I want to know why you think you are better than we are._

\--she touches inside, layers upon layers that would crumble to dust were she to touch in her flesh, but in her thought it is even more of a feast.

The beast is a glimmer within, a light that would keep her alive, but once she knows the glimmer, there will be nothing left, so she doesn’t touch it yet. She crawls back, back through the layers, and sees-through over the shape, over the flesh-words that speak to her not in order, but in meanings.

_You have a language, you have a technology, you are an organized society. How can you have all this and nothing else?_

There was another beast here before-now. Flesh-speaking angry, angry and tired, walking on the outside of the here-now, around, around, walking a pattern-play of superiority and triumph.

_‘Getting hungry yet? We’ll see how long you last.’_

The door slid shut after the beast, cutting of the stream of sound-questions and threats.

She was glad that beast was gone.

Its anger was too loud, and it disturbed her not-dream.

This beast is quiet-angry, and she not-dreams easily beside it. Its sound-questions slide into her and enqueue and dissipate, not-bothering, not-worth, not-meaning.

_You can’t just be like some giant beehive, following your basic needs alone. Culture, art, beauty. Have you ever heard of these? Can you even comprehend them?_

The shape of the beast is meaning, and she thought-bends along the shape, examines the pattern of sorrow, the pattern of grief, the pattern of quiet-anger--

_I want to know why you kill like this._

\--and in the pattern of quiet-anger she finds an empty place for the sound-answers to fill.

She slips from the not-dreaming, retreats back to the flesh and opens the eyes of the flesh, and this Sulum looks from the middle, through the buzzing and the horizontals of the here-now, this Sulum looks at the face of the beast, still hidden outside, in the shadow.

“It is my right,” she says, and the words taste sweet in her mouth.

The beast raises its head, narrows its eyes behind a flicker of reflection, and there is a stir, a stir in the mind of the beast, a confusion on registering of the unexpected sound-answer, a translating of sorrow into hope, into brief, flaring shape of attention. And then there is--

“Your _right_?”

\--a straightening of the body, up, up, up the wall, and a step forward, an uncertain halt, a tightening and relaxing of fists.

“A right to treat another intelligent being like meat?”

The pattern unwinds, unfurls itself into loud-anger, the anger that seeps through the layers of flesh, and it’s too loud, too loud, so this Sulum closes her eyes, shields herself back in the fleeting not-dream--

“A right to hunt us down and murder us as if we were cattle?”

\--back in the fleeting not-dream, in the quiet of the place under her eyelids, where she can see the anger, see the pattern unwind--

“And who gave you this right? How do you even know it was theirs to give?”

\--but under her eyelids, the pattern of anger is skewed, the pattern of anger is wrong.

This Sulum opens her eyes.

The beast has locked itself in a cradle of its arms, its fingers tightening, releasing, its body quivering a quiet, quiet pattern of not-knowing.

The beast wants to know. Its anger is not really anger. It is an empty place, burning, screaming to be _filled_.

This Sulum has never found one so hungry.

She thinks she might even be amused.

So she tastes the sound-question, tastes the limits of the language, and before she reconsiders this momentary play--

“Do you dream?” she asks.

\--and pauses, because this – this is betrayal.

The beast is quiet. The beast stands in the shadow, way out of this Sulum’s reach, way out, as if the buzzing extended beyond the here-now, beyond the edge of this Sulum’s prison.

But the beast wants to know. Its understanding is open, waiting.

The beast will not understand, and the betrayal does not matter.

“Everybody dreams,” the beast says finally, and the anger has seeped through it and is gone, dissipating into the dark. “Why do you ask?”

The sound-question resonates and this Sulum smiles. She raises her hand. She beckons--

“Come and I will show you.”

\--and then, because the pattern of fear is still there, or will be, though the beast will not want to show it, which is also a pattern, centuries upon centuries of seeing-through, and this Sulum knows she could slip-in and _pull_ , and it would be easy, too easy--

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispers. “I will not feed.”

\--because she finds it much more rewarding to touch a willing mind.

The beast doesn’t move, but for the tightening and releasing of fingers, hunger and fear fighting for supremacy inside it, but this Sulum knows already, because there is no other way; the hunger will win, as it so often does.

And then there is--

An exhaling of air, and a raising of arm, a click-clacking sound in the darkness, and the buzzing stops, the shackles around this Sulum’s mind lifting along with it.

This Sulum smiles wider as she steps from the middle, steps to where the horizontals are now dead and quiet, to where the beast is already waiting. She tilts her head and reaches through the horizontals – slowly, so the beast doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t force her to pull, _pull_ to keep it in place.

The beast doesn’t flinch away. It waits, still quivering, for the soft, soft touch to the side of its skull, and then it bends its head to this Sulum’s hand, it bends to her mind, to her craving and--

\--pain--

\-- _poison!_ \--

It’s thin, thin and barely there, a layer of poison, and it’s painful, so _painful_ \--

\--but this Sulum holds.

She holds, because this poison does not belong to the beast. It is just a memory of touch, a scent of poison where a touch must have been. Still it hurts this Sulum’s mind, a void open under her feet, emptiness ready to burn her hollow--

\--but this Sulum holds.

She holds, because hunger is more than she ever expected, and not a pattern, not a pattern at all, and there is a layer upon layer upon layer down, down to the glimmer, to the glimmer and past it, deeper, past the self-knowing of the beast, past the hollow, echoing question of _why me why me why me_ …

This Sulum holds.

And she _gives_.

 

~*~

 

At night, there is a man screaming on Atlantis.

The light flickers on the moment he jerks awake – a gentle, orange glow, meant to ease the transition from the world of the dreaming. But still it hurts his eyes, and he squints, barks a command, presses his face back into the pillow.

The city complies. Darkness falls in the room.

He sighs, takes a deep breath. His scream has sunk into the paneled walls.

The air is damp and cool, sifting through the open door of the balcony, licking a cold slice across his back. The sweat on his skin is drying, and the chill of the night settles into his bones. He shivers, and reaches behind, gropes blindly for the sheet, pulls--

There is no resistance.

_Damn._

He props himself on one elbow, starts to turn over onto his back--

Pain shoots along his spine, a flare of ice between his shoulder blades, crucifying him, pinning him in place, and he freezes – let it pass, oh god, slowly, slowly now--

Breathing is difficult, and god _damn_ Daniel for wanting to sleep with the balcony door open, he should have at least closed it on his way out, oh crap, he should have known not to open it in the first place; this body isn’t getting any younger, and Daniel should know that, god _damn_ he should know that--

‘ _Relax_ ,’ Daniel said. ‘ _Just relax, Jack._ ’

The pain fades, ebbs away, crawls back into his bones. Jack takes one shallow breath, then another, and sinks slowly back into the mattress. He lies on his stomach for a little while, then stretches slowly, one limb at a time, working up the courage to straighten his back. When he finally does, the pain is just a memory, it might as well never have been there.

But it _is_ there, and it will wait, hiding, for another opportunity like this. It will wait and then it will cut him open when he least expects it.

They say that if you wake up and nothing hurts – you’re most likely dead.

There’s a t-shirt hanging over the back of a chair. Jack sits up, reaches, puts the t-shirt on, and then realizes it’s not his. He resists the urge to put the fabric to his face and breathe in. Daniel’s smell is all over him now.

‘ _Relax_ ,’ Daniel said, even though he must have known it was the last thing either of them could do. ‘Just relax, Jack.’

Daniel was trembling, he was trembling bad, but he didn’t stop. Stopping would have meant something, and Jack wasn’t sure what, but he knew they couldn’t stop, not then, not for the world, and apparently Daniel knew that too, because--

‘Shhh,’ Daniel whispered, and it was a ridiculous thing to say, and Jack would have laughed, would have laughed if only he remembered how, but his brain had shut down, and Daniel’s hot, shallow breath was in his ear, Daniel’s mouth at his jaw, and they weren’t even kissing, they weren’t kissing at all.

Later, he thought Daniel would want to talk about it. He thought Daniel would want to ask, so he prepared himself for the questions. He sorted the memories, dusted off the labels, double-checked the locks.

But Daniel didn’t want to talk about it.

Daniel wanted to talk about the Wraith.

The corridor is dark when he steps outside, and the light doesn’t switch on. A gesture of goodwill, so Jack raises his hand to his temple in a half-hearted salute to the bowels of Atlantis, to the dark intestine of the hallway.

There is an aquarium in the wall opposite his room, the glass shining with soft blue light. A string of bubbles detaches itself from the bottom, glitters its way up, and disappears soundlessly in the dark. Jack watches the bubbles float, squints a little at the blue.

Pretty stuff. Stylish. Beats the Goa’uld wallpaper ten times over.

No fish, though. Pity.

Jack leans against the wall, shakes his head to clear the last of the cobwebs.

“You know,” he says to the ceiling. “If I were you, I’d get myself a Coke machine.” He waves his hand in the general direction of his room. “Right here would be just fine.”

The city is silent, as he knew it would be.

There will be no one in the mess hall at this time of night, but if he’s lucky, he might at least find some coffee. And if not… well, McKay’s lab would be the next stop. Jack’s mind shifts into gear, plots the course along the shortest path. He starts down the corridor.

Daniel wanted to talk about the Wraith. What was that word he used? Ah yes. Civilization. He called the suckers a _civilization_. Blathered on about culture and history and – Jack remembers raising a mental eyebrow, being too sleepy to raise an actual one – yes, _beehives_. Daniel talked about beehives.

Jack wanted to make a remark about honey, but by the time his sleepy brain finished forming a sentence, Daniel had already moved on.

‘What if the Ancients weren’t the first here?’ he wondered aloud. ‘What if it’s _them_ who were the first? She said it was their feeding ground. She said we were trespassing.’

Jack was sleepy, sleepy and warm. Warm and sated and… yeah, almost happy in the security of the moment. He let his eyes close, and his thoughts drift. Daniel’s voice was a balm on his nerves after the breakneck pace of the day.

‘Trespassing means ownership of the land. It means there’s a territory, with borders, most probably historical. And how much do we actually know about Wraith history? Not their history as a species, but as a society? Next to nothing, and certainly not enough to draw any consistent conclusions. So far we’ve only seen one side of this, Jack.’

Jack opened one eye. Daniel was lying on his back, his hands behind his head, his pillow propped up against the headboard. He looked like he could use a smoke. Jack sighed, licked his lips.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen my share of this side, and it sure as hell ain’t pretty.’

Daniel turned his head towards him. He looked a little surprised – probably thought Jack was already sleeping. The he smiled an absent-minded half-smile, shifted a little down on the pillow. His eyes were black hollows in the shadows on his face.

‘Beauty is only skin deep, Jack,’ he whispered, still smiling, and for a moment there that smile looked almost scary.

The mess hall is empty and dark. No coffee anywhere, and nothing to eat. All closed up for the night. Oh, damn it, what was he thinking anyway. Onward to the labs, then.

It strikes him in the hallway just before he turns the corner. He looks twice, to make sure it’s not just a late-night trick of his mind.

The lights are bright yellow all the way down the corridor, and he doesn’t remember Atlantis switching them on for him.

He doesn’t remember Atlantis switching them on at all.

He is running even before his mind adds up all the factors.

Down, down, past the labs, bare feet slapping on the ornamented floor. The lights sweep past him, the doors already open all the way before he is even near them. Atlantis is leading him, prompt in its servitude like a gentle, giant beast.

There is a guard outside the cell, and he is rising slowly to his feet, shoulders hunched in the way that is a _definition_ of dozing off on watch. Jack ignores him, along with the surprised, sleepy _Sir?_ and goes straight for the door. He punches in the code, the panels swish open, and he has the one eighty covered in less than a breath.

One breath. And he stops.

Later, he will remember that he thought about pain. Does it travel, like electricity, when you touch it?

Later, he will remember the curve of Daniel’s back, and his fingers, white-knuckled, clutching the bars, and that he thought: will it hurt, if I touch him?

But now he remembers the stun gun.

It is in his hands in an instant, ripped off the hook on the wall, warming up, firing, and the Wraith is falling back, hitting the floor with a satisfying thump, her fingers still spread, still reaching for the body pulled out of her grasp.

And Daniel is sliding to the floor by the cage, curled up in a ball.

Jack hangs the stun gun back on its hook. He walks to the control panel and switches the shield on the cage back on. He lets his hand fall to his side.

And then he just stands there, his face to the wall, letting the rush sweep through his body, break in cold sweat across his skin, and sink into Daniel’s t-shirt.

Later, he will remember he thought about pain. Does it go away, if you wait long enough, or does it just burrow itself deep, to wait until it can cut you open when you least expect it?

He knows he will have to turn around at some point. He knows he will have to look at Daniel’s face, Daniel’s hands; calculating, subtracting, assessing _how much_. Then he will have to reach, touch, scoop Daniel up, carry him into the infirmary. Call Beckett. Call McKay. Sit and wait.

He will have to do it all – just not now. Not yet.

Behind him, Daniel is whining softly.

Turn around, soldier, face it. Face it.

Jack turns around--

\--and his brain grinds into a stop, and it’s a trick of the light, a trick of his thoughts, memory overlapping with reality, need overlapping with fact, and he thinks, _I’m still sleeping, I must be sleeping_ \--

\--because Daniel has turned onto his back, hand reaching up, up to scrape at the bars of the cage, and his hand, this is still _Daniel’s_ hand, and his face, _god_ , this is still _Daniel’s_ face--

And then Jack gets it, all of it, at once.

The lights, leading him, not really alarms, but only _alarmed_.

The guard by the door, secure in the knowledge that nothing is wrong, _good evening, doctor Jackson, oh yeah, she’s been quiet all right, Major Sheppard made sure of it, sir_.

The shield on the cage, switched off, _yes, Rodney, I remember the code_.

Daniel’s hands, _holding_ onto the bars, not pushing away.

Daniel’s smile, back there in the dimness.

_‘We’ve only seen one side of this, Jack.’_

And when the last of the pieces clink right into place, Jack is empty, and the only thing he can recognize is anger.

“What the fuck--”

 

~*~

 

“--were you thinking, Daniel?!”

White, white in his eyes, white noise in his ears, a sudden lack of sound, touch, taste, smell, everything, it’s like he’s lost _everything_ , all at once.

He is shaking, or he thinks he is, fingers, hands, arms, so difficult to find, as if he’s never had them, as if he’s never known how to find them at all.

He sobs, or he thinks he does; it hurts to make a sound, so inadequate, so shallow after all he’s just seen.

“I’m sorry,” he grinds out, speaking broken glass.

More shudders seize him, and this time he knows they are real, because there is a rising of bile all the way up from his stomach, and he is on his knees, throwing up, coughing and spitting the acid--

\--burning, burning cold--

\--cold, cold sliver of ice--

\--but it’s there, it’s _inside_ him and he can’t, he can’t force it out.

“Oh, you damn well better be sorry.” A voice, a touch… a _grip_ , pulling him up, dragging him, away from the whiteness, away from the cold, and then there is something hard against his back – a wall, he is propped against a wall--

\--the wall of the cell--

\--the cell in Atlantis--

\--and it comes back to him in a shudder of knowing, in a cascade of darkness when he opens his eyes.

“No,” he whispers--

\--and stops, because she is still there.

“What?”

A movement in the corner of his eye, a shadow… Jack. Jack has come for him, to get him, to stop him.

Jack--

Jack has hurt them.

But she is still there.

He coughs, wipes his mouth. He tries to stand up, but he can’t, he is still too weak. Somewhere beside him he can feel Jack reaching out, hesitating.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, the only thing he is able to say. He swallows, it’s still painful, but it’s nothing, nothing compared to the pain she must feel. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

And she is still there, standing up now, unfolding slowly from the floor. She straightens, and stands tall in the middle of the cage, a statue of blue and blood red and dark eyes that can see right through him.

She is disgusting.

She is beautiful.

She nods, and her smile is a pounding of blood in his ears, and her voice is an echo of the sliver of cold deep inside him.

“It was his right.”

 

~

 

Later, on the balcony, there is breeze against his skin, a soft, cool touch of air on his face. The sky is painted green and pale blue, and it’s the last moment before sunrise.

He thinks it’s probably breathtaking.

“So what did you see?”

Jack is a spot of grey and military black in the corner of his eye. Jack awake, Jack composed.

Jack looking for intel.

Jack forced him out of the cell and pulled him back to his room, all the way up through the empty corridors of the sleeping city. The lights darkened and flickered off behind them.

Back in the room, Jack gave him water and watched him drink, eyes fixed on the cup like he wanted to drink it himself. And when Daniel finished, Jack put the cup away and stepped close, and touched Daniel’s face, then his neck, his hands and his fingers, and then he stripped him down and touched everything else, like he could not get enough of touching.

But he touched on the outside, where everything was in place, everything was in order, everything was as it was supposed to be. He touched as if there was no layer upon layer upon layer down, down to the sliver of cold, to the echo of touch that went beyond the visible.

_What did I see?_

Daniel cranes his neck, blinks the sunrise out of his eyes, takes a breath, slow and deep, almost deep enough.

“A symphony, Jack,” he says, smiling sideways, because if Jack sees a smile, he may understand it was something good, something beautiful. “I’ve seen a symphony.”

Jack is quiet for a long moment, and Daniel begins to think that maybe he didn’t say anything out loud, but it doesn’t matter anyway, Jack would not understand, and the sun is rising, the sight breathtaking after all, so Daniel just stands there in silence, and looks at the sea.

“That’s good,” Jack says finally.

Then there’s a shadow over Daniel’s face, a touch of fingers to his jaw, pulling, and Jack kisses him, short and light, and then pulls away and goes back into the room.

Daniel stands on the balcony for a while longer, letting the sun warm his skin.

And then he licks his lips, and tastes the poison.


End file.
